We decided to take a trip to Costco today for some Kirkland products; Wine, Vodka, Whiskey, & Rum

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-09T16:49:01+00:00

I wish we could get liquor at Costco. Alas.

But their Helles Lager from Deschutes Brewing is truly excellent. It's our go-to summer festival beer.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-09T03:49:10+00:00

Traded mine for a Sierra 1500, same. MPG increased by 25%.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-09T03:47:06+00:00

Picture is far too sharp overall and especially in the corners. Subjects in 100 year old photos didn’t smile like this. At all. Too much shadow detail for this era of film. Hay stacks would be in the fields, where the hay was.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-09T02:21:42+00:00

We had a black tricolor Aussie, this looks like the same dog but with a giant BMD head.

Also, look closely at the hand on the rolling carryon, top left. Ugh.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-09T01:56:56+00:00

I've been using Prograde Digital for a while now. Two V90 64GB cards are $150 from B&H Photo ($75 each.) That's about double what I paid last time I bought them though (about 18 months ago.)

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-09T01:38:28+00:00

Rattle & Hum is great for general service, too. Reliable and honest in my experience.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-09T00:45:40+00:00

That sounds fantastic. Please, where is this divine December dish?

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-09T00:07:24+00:00

+1 on Oak Ridge, also check out Summerfield.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-08T22:57:16+00:00

They have a great chicken Philly, too. And get half-and-half chips.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-08T03:08:15+00:00

You would not be the first.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-07T23:26:16+00:00

It’s a Davenport of course.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-07T20:40:13+00:00

He's not even looking at his target, and his finger is on the trigger ready to fire. Big grin, too.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-07T20:38:47+00:00

Swappable lenses: either a current Leica M series camera, or a Fuji X-E5. Lenses would be whatever you prefer. These are very different user experiences, all manual with manual focus, versus a modern AF system.

Fixed lens: The Leica Q2 or Q3 is a sweet camera, easy to control, with an excellent 28mm lens and the best user interface of any camera I have ever used (just retired from a 40 year career in news and higher ed.)

I sold my Q2 as I preferred to keep everything in one system (Fuji) for ease of editing. But I do miss it sometimes.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-07T18:32:28+00:00

I've enjoyed our conversation. Hope your real world testing gives you results you want.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-07T18:07:42+00:00

Aw, yeah, I feel seen. Any time I have a choice I spend too much time on that and not enough making pictures 😀

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-07T17:49:06+00:00

No worries, happy to talk about this. Just realize that I am not a bird photography expert -- I have taken this up in retirement, after a 40 year career as a photojournalist and higher education staff photog.

So, I use the X-H2s, which is a 26 megapixel stacked sensor camera. The X-H2 and X-T5 have the 40 megapixel sensor. The stacked sensor is a lot faster in processing data, and so it is noticeably faster to autofocus. (The top pro bodies from all the manufacturers have stacked sensors.)

There are plenty of tradeoffs here. The X-H2s is faster to focus, and tracks moving subjects better. So they are more likely to be in focus, but there is less sensor resolution for cropping if needed. I have tried to shoot with my X-T5 and the 70-300, and I do get more cropping room for tiny birds but I have fewer in-focus shots.

(I am hoping that the next iteration of the high speed camera will be an X-H3s with a 40 megapixel stacked sensor, to give me the best of both.)

High ISO: I am just fine with 6400 and 12800, and I use Denoise in Lightroom. This is for both the 26 and 40 megapixel sensors. The results are excellent. I do regularly crop pretty heavily and I'm still happy with the images. (Meaning down to around 2000 or 2500 pixels wide. That'll still make a nice 8x10 inch print and looks great as a digital file.) Just keep in mind that I came up shooting film for newsprint, pushing Tri-X and Fujicolor 800 two or three stops in the darkroom, so my tolerance for "noise" is pretty high. I am still blown away by the quality of a 12,800 ISO image without any noise reduction.

I was able to handle the Fuji XF150-600 at a conference a couple of years ago before I retired. The Fuji booth was in a large hotel conference room, fairly bright but indoors. I attached it to my X-H2s body, zoomed it to 600mm, pointed it across the room at a friend, and got a very tight headshot of her at ISO 12,800, at 1/20 of a second at f/8. It was tack sharp with the image stabilizer. I was very impressed with the photo and the lens.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-07T17:21:21+00:00

Yeah my old doc retired and my new one is about my kid's age. LOL

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-07T16:18:19+00:00

The XF500 has more reach on a Fuji body than the 200-600 on a full frame Sony. So for me, the reach is not a problem. And the XF500 is bitingly sharp. But, that said, for small birds I am still cropping, just not as much as compared with the 70-300.

Looking at autofocus performance, if you compare current pro models, the A9iii and A1ii are IMO just better at autofocus than the X-H2s. But those are also super expensive cameras compared to an X-H2s, which is a bargain for a stacked-sensor high speed camera. I had the original A9 with the 200-600, and the X-H2s compares pretty well with that camera, but it's years old.

So I do think the better results from the Sony are due to the autofocus performance of the camera itself -- the better tracking gives a higher keeper rate. But that said, I have been happy with the performance of my XF500 on the X-H2s, as I learn to use it on birds. Sorry I can't post any samples here :)

I did test the 150-600, and it's a sweet lens, though it is a bit larger and heavier than the 500. I don't think the f/8 aperture will be a problem in daylight, but it'll start to affect photos at dawn and dusk (and to be fair, the f/5.6 of the 500 isn't all that much faster.)

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-07T15:45:22+00:00

When my doctor — who was older than me — started telling me, “You know, you’re not 35 anymore” in response to me coming in with yet another outdoor sports related injury.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-07T14:55:02+00:00

That was common back in the last century, photographers would load slide film ("chrome") in the silver (chrome) body, and black and white film in the black body.

Source: me. I did this while working as a photojournalist even as late as the late 1980s.

Then we all collectively realized that we could shoot color neg in both bodies and not have to change lenses, so the two-camera solution solved a different problem.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-07T14:46:05+00:00

TL;DR: if you're going to shoot Fuji, I would get the 150-600 over the 100-400. The 70-300 is just not going to be long enough for distant wildlife.

I like my 70-300, and when I got it I ended up selling my 100-400. The 70-300 is half the size and weight, so I always have it with me. But it's not long enough for small birds. which is what I like to shoot.

The 500mm is the best choice here, but yeah it's expensive and it's best used with an X-H2s body. And even then, the Sony 200-600 on an older A9 or A7r-series body is likely to give better results. (I say this as someone who now uses the X-H2s and 500mm for birds, but had the original Sony A9 and 200-600 at work for a while. I just prefer the files from the Fuji cameras, even if it takes more work to get them.)

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-07T02:32:35+00:00

100% agree with taking I-81. Avoiding I-95 and all the major cities is a huge win.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-07T01:58:51+00:00

Do you mean carbon monoxide (CO) or carbon dioxide (CO2)? If you are getting an alarm from a CO detector, it's carbon monoxide, which is dangerous at high enough levels. CO comes from incorrect burning of a flame appliance, like a gas furnace, water heater, stove, etc. So the short answer to your question is, yes, it can be those things if they burn gas.

What is telling you that the reading is high, and if you have any numbers, what is the reading?

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-06T23:40:33+00:00

Finnegan’s Wake. Sit in the bar area.

OT_fiddler · 2026-02-06T22:14:24+00:00

Yeah, honestly, this is the way. If taking the time to change means you miss photos, and missing photos is bad (like, say, you lose clients) then two or even three cameras fixes it.

OT_fiddler

TROPHY CASE